


From Passing Through

by coricomile



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:01:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24449269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coricomile/pseuds/coricomile
Summary: They take their disasters and pile them up at Patrick's feet, trust him to dismantle them and put them back together.
Relationships: Andy Hurley/Patrick Stump/Joe Trohman/Pete Wentz
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	From Passing Through

**Author's Note:**

> Cleaning out the backlog

They're all fucked up, is the thing.

Sure, Pete's the biggest fuck up, the one everyone knows about. Loud and sleepless and crazy, scars on his outsides, forever bleeding wounds on the insides. He's the media darling, the face that sells the music. His fuck ups are public. It doesn't mean he's the only one.

Joe's fuck ups are mostly in his head, mostly linked directly in to the pot smoke that hangs around him like an aura. He smokes up, looks into himself, and finds weakness and uselessness. His scars stay hidden.

And Andy. Andy never feels clean. Not in the ways that matter. Not on the inside. The straight edge, the veganism, it can't clean out the drugs from years and years ago, can't wash away the memories of violence. There's thick, raised reminders under his tattoos, keeping him the company he doesn't want.

But Patrick- Patrick's not a fuck up. He's calm and collected and amazing, small but filled with good heart and sweet voice and open arms. He picks them up and sets them straight, fixes them in ways that nothing else can.

And they all love him, deep in a way that's probably as fucked as everything else in their heads. They drop to their knees, one by one, and turn themselves over to him. Love me, fix me, take care of me, don't let me keep fucking up.

And Patrick- he lets them. He lets Pete touch him desperately, clinging on like they're both dying, like he'll never get the chance again. He lets Andy press insistent fingers to his jaw and throat, allows him to suck out the clean and pure and unmarred places inside him. He lets Joe curl up on his lap, pets him like a child, soothes his aching head.

They take their disasters and pile them up at Patrick's feet, trust him to dismantle them and put them back together, to saw off the jagged edges and tape up the rips left over. And he does, every time, soothing voice and soothing hands and the bright, bright light in their darkness.

It's Joe that sees the fissure start; Joe that sees the first crack slipping in past Patrick's careful walls. It's small, right under the surface as Patrick kisses him, gentle tongue and soft mouth, hands curled into Joe's shirt like an anchor. They've always been sweet and puppy-soft, and when Joe catches Patrick's lip between his teeth, bites down too hard, Patrick's eyes go distant, his fingers go rigid.

Joe tells them, huddled in the bus, pretending that they're watching the movie instead of Patrick sleeping on the floor in front of them.

"It was like," Joe says, pausing. "It was like he wasn't there anymore."

And because it's who he is, Pete presses. He corners Patrick at a venue, tucks him into a dusty room and shoves him against a wall. Patrick fights him- Patrick always fights him. It's what Pete wants, what Pete needs. But Pete stops him, holds him to the wall and traps his wrists, locks him down.

Patrick doesn't yell, which is the first sign of something gone truly, truly wrong. Pete kisses his jaw, the underside of his chin. Gentle, gentle, gentle in a way he never is, the pressure of his hands on Patrick's wrist constant.

When he looks up, Patrick's eyes are closed, his mouth open, sectioned off and lost inside his own head. Pete drops Patrick's wrists, feels sick, like he's crossed a line he never should have.

Patrick fucks him in the dusty, dirty room, bent down against the wall, the sounds of the show starting echoing around them.

"It's like there's a switch," Pete tells Joe and Andy later, fingers press, press, pressing on the purple-blue bruises on his thighs. Patrick's curled in his bunk, pretending to be or actually asleep. No one can tell.

Andy isn't sure of what to expect. He doesn't want to be the one to push Patrick off of whatever cliff he's standing on, doesn't want to be the one that yanks Patrick down to their level.

"Are you okay?" He asks instead, pressed full body against Patrick in another undistinguished hotel bed. Patrick laughs a little, but he doesn't answer.

Andy isn't Pete; he doesn't push, doesn't barrel through. He touches the soft sides of Patrick's face, blocks away the hand Patrick's trying to distract him with, and watches instead. Patrick doesn't sleep, and is gone when Andy wakes up in the morning.

The crack crawls up, day by day, until Patrick breaks.

They're piled in Pete's hotel room, still slick at the sides with sweat from the show, raw from the insides out, trying to burn off the last of their anxious energy.

Pete and Joe are wrestling, half-dressed, yelling probably too loud for the time of night. Morning. Whatever the hazy black, purple, blue outside their window means. Pete rolls under the bed, still clamped onto Joe's arms, and Joe goes with him. Joe is not Pete, and he's bigger besides, and the bed frame smacks against his temple.

There's no blood; just a lot of cursing and laughing and empty threats. Pete crawls out from under the bed, dirty and grinning, as Joe presses gentle fingers to the forming red spot. Andy shakes his head and turns back to his comic.

"Kiss it better," Joe says, half laughing as he flops down onto Patrick's lap. He shoves his hair to the side and presents his wound, waiting.

And Patrick. Patrick doesn't.

He pushes Joe off, harder possibly than he's ever handled Joe, and locks himself in the bathroom. Joe looks from Pete to Andy and back again.

Andy's the one to go to the door, to slide down against it, ready to wait for the long haul. He strains to hear anything- the crash of Patrick's fist going through the mirror, the sound of the shower curtain being ripped down, the soft hitch of Patrick's breath as he freaks out- but there's nothing.

"Patrick?" Andy asks, soft. Pete and Joe sit on the floor next to him, curled up like they've been scolded.

"I'm not-" Patrick's voice is muffled, but Andy feels the door move a little as Patrick settles down against it. "I can't do it anymore."

The silence hurts.

Pete thinks, I broke him, I tore him down to nothing.

Joe thinks, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I take it back.

Andy thinks, I didn't know. I thought you were unbreakable.

Andy says, "We just want you, Patrick. Nothing else."

It seems like it takes forever for the lock to slide open, even longer for the first hint of the door opening. The three of them scramble up, waiting. Now that they know to look, they can see the tired lines at the corners of Patrick's eyes, the sad slope of his mouth. Pete takes the first step, cautious, like he's reaching for a rabid animal.

Patrick lets the hand on his arm pull him closer, lets Pete wrap him up in a tight hug. He's small and warm, tired as his arms finally curl around Pete's waist. Joe joins in, ducking through the ring of Pete's arms to get closer. It's only natural that Andy goes, too, finishes the lopsided circle around Patrick, finishes the tangle of arms and hips and elbows.

"I'm sorry," Patrick says against Pete's shoulder. He's just as fucked up as they are, the noise in his head just as loud. The silence says that it's okay, that the pile of them will fix Patrick like he's fixed them.


End file.
